Monday, November 29, 2004

State Supreme Court Denies Washington’s Plea for Release

State Supreme Court Denies Washington’s Plea for Release

By Annette Jones
The Winchester Star

Convicted murderer Jeffery Franklin Washington’s petition for a writ of habeas corpus has been denied by the Virginia Supreme Court.

A writ of habeas corpus is a legal request that the person in custody be released from jail because the custody is unlawful due to fatally flawed legal procedures.

Washington, the convicted trigger man in the 1994 drug-related murder of Carlos Marshall, had hoped to have his conviction overturned.

According to the request filed by Washington, D.C., attorney William Moffitt, Washington claimed that witnesses against him were coerced into giving damaging testimony by representatives of Winchester Commonwealth’s Attorney Paul H. Thomson.

The one-page ruling issued Tuesday by the state Supreme Court said the justices didn’t find any merit in the complaints raised by Washington.

Ever since Washington entered his Alford guilty pleas, his father, Franklin Washington, has embarked on a letter-writing campaign to public officials highlighting what he saw as illegal activity in the Winchester Commonwealth’s Attorney’s Office regarding his son’s prosecution.

Franklin Washington also has maintained a vigil in front of the Winchester Public Safety Building on North Cameron Street trying to keep his son’s case in the public eye.

Jeffery Washington was identified by police as the man who formed a plan to robbery Marshall of marijuana on Aug. 16, 1994, and as the man who fired the shot that killed the 22-year-old former Shenandoah University basketball star. Washington was sentenced to 70 years in prison.

Also convicted of Marshall’s murder were John Doleman, Rudolph Powell, William Beamer, and Shawn Polston